Donald Steelberg passed away on Thursday, September 24, 2026, at the age of 92, in Morton Grove, Illinois. He was born to Drusilla Tackett and Carl Raymond Steelberg, a pastor in the Evangelical Church (later the E in the EUB Church), in Denver Colorado on March 16, 1934. He was baptized into the Christian faith at the age of five, his father not believing in infant baptism, only because the District Superintendent insisted upon it, and chose not to be re-baptized when he joined the Anabaptists because he considered baptism a onetime rite.

He graduated from Northwestern University in 1956 with BA in English and from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was president of the student body his senior year, in 1959 with a Bachelor of Divinity. Upon graduation he worked for the Cook County Department of Public Aid in Chicago for five years, taking seminary classes at the University of Chicago Divinity School for a Ph.D. It was a hectic time, Elsie finishing her anesthesia residency and taking the boys to their grandma’s shortly after 6:00 every morning, Elsie on call the first year every other night. When his advisor and two professors left U of C in 1964, he chose not to continue, and then received a call to Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church (LAMC), in Wichita, where he served as Associate Pastor for three years, ordained on October 31 1965. He then went to First Mennonite Church in Wadsworth, Ohio, where he served 15 years and participated in city life as a President of its Library Board and ran once for the school board. He then went back to LAMC, this time as Pastor, for 16 years starting in 1983. During these years he took Clinical Pastoral training at St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington DC, Interim Ministry training, and after retirement served three interims: West Zion Moundridge, Bethel College Church North Newton, and Hope Mennonite in Wichita. Elsie and he served a three-month period in Pakistan and Afghanistan for the Mennonite Church in 1997 and traveled to Israel Palestine with Mennonite Central Committee in 2002.

He served on the Commission on Home Ministries, the General Conference Mennonite Church, for eleven years, concurrently with its General Board for nine years; the Western District Conference for four years and the Mennonite Central Committee for 19 years, chairing its US Committee six years; a member of the Integration Committee for the General Conference and Mennonite Church. He also authored The True Meaning of the Lord’s Supper: Welcoming Others (2011)

He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Elsie, his sister Priscilla, his brother Charles, and a foster brother Steven Mitchell. He was married on September 26, 1959 to Elsie Enns whom he met at Northwestern. She was his ticket into the Mennonite Church. To them four sons were born. They and their families are Jeremy and Caroline, Cameron and Graham; Nelson and Nancy, Johanna Braunsdorf (Michael) and Matthew; Derek and Maria, Tierney (Jillian), Connor, Malena and Solenne; Schuyler and Kathleen. In June of 2018 he was privileged to officiate at Tierney’s and Jillian’s wedding in Chicago. He is survived by these, his sister Nathalie of Arlington Heights IL, and a host of friends.